Search form

Abstract

Although major changes have occurred in size of farm animals since the beginning of scientific animal production, physical laws of nature dictate the limits within which various body dimensions or physiological functions of animals may vary (Brown et al., 1983). Identification of an optimal size for all production situations is therefore not possible (Fitzhugh, 1978). However, animal breeders wonder if the size of the beef cattle may not be too large for the breeding herd because of the increase in maintenance costs associated with heavier mature cow weights (Urick et al., 1971). Although there are numerous estimates of genetic relationships for many pairs of economically important traits in beef cattle, there is a paucity of information on how mature weight of cows is related to carcass traits. Selection for traits measured in one sex of beef cattle may yield undesirable response in traits measured in the opposite sex (Speer, 1993). The objective of this study was to investigate the genetic relationships between mature weights of cows and carcass traits of steers.